DOI

10.5703/1288284316385

Abstract

Service interchanges connect freeways to arterial roads and are the backbone of the U.S. road network. Improving the operations of service interchanges is possible by applying one of several new solutions: diverging diamond, single point interchanges, and double or single roundabout diamonds.

VISSIM was used to perform 13,500 experiments to simulate the traffic performance of the studied alternative interchanges during a typical day for a wide range of geometry and traffic scenarios. Five performance measures were investigated: daily-average delay, level of service of critical movement, daily-average number of stops, longest off-ramp queue, and longest crossing road queue. The obtained daily-average delays at the alternative interchanges were consistent with expectations. Roundabouts had the highest average delay while single-point interchanges had the lowest average delays. Roundabouts exhibited the lowest numbers of stops among all the alternatives in the low traffic range up to non-freeway 30,000 veh/day. Diverging diamonds tended to have the shortest and roundabouts tended to have the longest queues on their off-ramps. Overall, single-point interchanges had the shortest queues among all the alternatives.

The study developed guidelines for early stage screening of alternative diamond. The guidelines exhibit performance measures for 25 traffic and geometric scenarios and a wide range of traffic volumes. The guidelines provide a fair comparison procedure for alternative diamond interchanges in the preliminary planning and conceptual design stages.